PARIS — The crowd that attended France's surprising victories over Canada and Germany this week at the Bercy Arena on the banks of the Seine in the French capital has been electric this week. And Saturday's gold medal match against Team USA is expected to bring with it a new level of energy, both for the opponent and its villain.
Joel Embiid has played the role to perfection, and while he's mostly been willing to try to revel in the situation and even get back at fans, he said Friday that he doesn't understand why there's so much venom directed at him, but that it won't change his attitude.
“Frankly, I don't understand why I've gotten so much criticism from the crowd,” Embiid said. “They're going to boo me. I'm going to talk back and tell them to f*** off. So it's going to be fun.”
The French are angry with Embiid because he asked for and received French citizenship in 2022, and the idea was that it was so he could play in these Games representing France. Whatever the words between the French basketball team and government officials, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Embiid never felt he made a promise.
Embiid, who has discussed this many times this summer but has not seen any rapprochement with French fans, said that when he spoke with Macron he discussed how the relationship between France and African nations, including Cameroon, is “not good.”
He’s distraught at this point, he said, because he thinks it should be easy to understand why he chose the United States, where he has lived since he was 16 and where he will gain citizenship in 2023. And many of Embiid’s current teammates on Team USA recruited him, letting him know they wanted him to play a key role.
“Having lived half my life in the United States and half my life in my country, Cameroon, it seemed like there could be two paths,” Embiid said. “I said, from the beginning, and everyone knew, that if Cameroon had qualified, that would never have been an option. And then having the family [in America] “And having built a lot of things and accomplished a lot of things in the U.S. and then getting to know the group of guys so deeply, it just made it easy.”
Embiid is having an impressive Olympics, especially in Thursday's semifinals, where he went head-to-head with Serbian star Nikola Jokic. Embiid scored 19 points with four rebounds and a block.
Over the past three games, he's averaged 16 points on 61 percent shooting from the field. And he's been encouraging boos all game long, adding his favorite move (banned by the NBA) borrowed from the WWE, the “crotch chop,” when the Games moved to Paris this week.
“I think a lot of people wanted [make it an issue] “Because of the history and all that… but for me it's whatever it takes to win gold. So that's what I'm focused on. It's about Team USA versus France.”
